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    The Great Unexpected: A Novel
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    The Great Unexpected: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Great Unexpected: A Novel
    Ebook384 pages7 hours

    The Great Unexpected: A Novel

    By Dan Mooney

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A curmudgeon and his eccentric new roommate join together to plan an epic escape in this charming, poignant tale.

    Joel lives in a nursing home, and he’s not one bit happy about it. He hates being told when to eat, when to sleep, when to take his pills. He’s fed up with life and begins to plan a way out when his new roommate, a retired soap opera actor named Frank, moves in and turns the nursing-home community upside down.

    Though the two men couldn’t be more opposite, a fast friendship is formed when Frank is the only one who listens to and stands up for Joel. When he tells Frank about his burgeoning plan, they embark together on a mission to find the perfect escape, and along the way will discover that it’s never too late for new beginnings.

    Filled with colorful characters, sparkling humor and deep emotion, The Great Unexpected is the story of friendship, finding oneself later in life and experiencing newfound joy in the most unexpected places.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarlequin
    Release dateJun 25, 2019
    ISBN9781488045349
    Unavailable
    The Great Unexpected: A Novel
    Author

    Dan Mooney

    Dan Mooney is a 32-year-old amateur filmmaker and air traffic controller, and a friend to many cats. He wrote his first piece of fiction for a child-operated local newspaper at age ten and has been writing ever since. He lives in Ireland. Me Myself and Them is his first novel.

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    Reviews for The Great Unexpected

    4/5

    22 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      If you like "Ove", "Grumpy old Men" and the British TV series "Waiting for God" then this book is for you!Didn't like the ending.... it left too many things open!
    • 4/5
      I truly wasn’t expecting a book about two elderly men in a retirement home to be such a fantastic celebration of life. The Great Unexpected is a beautiful and raw story about grief, depression, old age, friendship, and love.
    • 4/5
      This book reminded me of Grumpy Old Men with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. Joel and Frank were Walter and Jack. I got such a kick out of reading this book. Mr. Mooney does bring the laughter. Yet, it is really Joel and Frank that brought this story alive and were the true stars of this book. Once, you got to know Joel; he really was not as "mean" as he may have come off as. In fact, I felt sadness towards him but at the same time happy that he found a friend in Frank. Frank has a big personality. Yet, he is infectious with his personality. One of my favorite moments was towards the end of the book when Joel and Frank were in the bar looking over the drink menu that included: Sex on my face, cock sucking cowboy, royal fucks, and of course slippery nipples.
    • 4/5
      When you see that Dan Mooney's novel, The Great Unexpected, is about two men in their late seventies living in a nursing home, you might think the great unexpected of the title is death but when you think about it, death is never really unexpected in a nursing home. In fact, they are called things like Heaven's Waiting Room, Old Folk's Home, Wrinkle Ranch, and Elder Shelter, all of which imply age and mortality. No, what the great unexpected refers to here is making a friend, a dear and close friend, and learning to really live at the end of life.Joel is a cantankerous old coot who lives at Hilltop Manor, a nursing home/assisted living center. He moved in with his wife Lucey after they sold their home to help their daughter financially but Lucey's been gone now for three years. Joel's next roommate is a comatose man called Mr. Miller. Joel says he's the best roommate ever because he doesn't make much noise and lets Joel have control of the TV remote. When Miller also dies one night, Joel is thrown for a loop by how much he is bothered by this death. Then he is horrified anew when another resident is moved into his room. This new roommate, Frank Adams, a retired actor whose stage name was Frank de Selby, is everything that drives Joel batty. Frank is outgoing and charming and incredibly chatty. He is flamboyant and dapper, wearing a silk scarf every day. Joel is determined to dislike this interloper in his room but finds that as he gets to know the person underneath the de Selby mask, he rather likes Frank. The two men couldn't be more different and they love to wind each other up, but they become treasured friends. Frank confides in Joel about his terrible family and how alone he has been since they discovered that he's gay. Joel's reaction to Frank's homosexuality is not as open minded as it could be so to make up for his initial intolerance, he admits to Frank that he doesn't think his life is worth living anymore and that he wants to kill himself. Sharing their secrets brings them closer together, cementing their friendship even as they bicker and hurt one another verbally. And Frank helps Joel to learn to live even as together they consider different scenarios for Joel's suicide. It's like they've known each other for decades instead of just a few weeks.These two old geezers, repeated nursing home escapees, are delightful to read about. Frank is debonair and educated. He's generally a happy soul although he lets few people see the real person behind the charmer. Joel is a curmudgeon who feels trapped in the nursing home and as if everyone around him is against him. He resents being treated like a child, being stripped of control over his own life, and condescended to when he once owned his own garage, supported his family, and was a successful adult. His grumpy demeanor is completely understandable given his assessment of his life. Frank's personality is 180 degrees different and he tries to view everything cheerfully despite the ugliness and hatred he faced in his life. The mischievousness of the pair together is only enhanced by their differences and leads to moments of great humor. Mooney does a good job showing how we treat old people, how demeaning and unfair it is, and how much richer we'd be if we didn't fail our elderly population. The contrast between the two men is used to good effect, showing how our attitudes towards things matter. Life is so much more pleasant with a glass half full perspective. But he also doesn't minimize real reasons for depression and sadness. The ending of the novel is completely predictable but even that predictability doesn't take away from the tender and delightful tale of late in life friendship, understanding, and the importance of family connections all riven through with entertaining banter. Anyone who liked Grumpy Old Men, A Man Called Ove, or The Odd Couple will enjoy Joel and Frank's relationship and exploits and anyone with an aging relative (that would be all of us) should read this and consider how we treat the aging folks we love.
    • 5/5
      Dan Mooney's poignant novel The Great Unexpected opens with Joel Monroe talking to his comatose roommate Mr. Miller in their shared room at the Hilltop Nursing Home. His previous roommate was his beloved wife Lucey, and Joel has been desperately unhappy since her passing a year ago.The nurses at the home are kind, including Liam and Angelica, and his fellow residents, especially Una, a dear friend of Lucey's, do their best to try and bring him out of his depression. His daughter Eva, and grandchildren Lily and Chris come to visit, but he feels little connection to them.When Mr. Miller passes away, Joel dreads getting a new roommate. He is further upset when the new roommate is Frank de Selby, a vivacious former actor, whose attitude about life couldn't be further apart from Joel's.When Joel tells Frank about his plan to commit suicide, Frank informs him that it must be a grand gesture, something that everyone will remember. Frank offers to put his playwriting skills to use coming up with the perfect plan.In the meantime, Frank and Joel plot to escape from Hilltop to go into town and have a pint at the pub. Joel is not allowed to leave Hilltop as his daughter fears he will have another small stroke, as he had done before. Their continued escapes causes great turmoil at Hilltop, leading to trouble for Joel.Frank and Joel become good friends, sharing stories about how their fathers beat them, Frank's acting career and struggles to reveal his homosexuality in a time when it wasn't accepted by society, and Joel's regrets about not being the kind of father to Eva that he could have been.Watching their friendship blossom was such a joy. Frank encourages Joel to open up and they become quite the pair. Frank is the only friend Joel has ever had, and since Frank's family disowned him, Joel is his best friend. They do have their moments of disagreement, and Joel can say mean things to Frank and others, including his daughter, that are shocking. There aren't many books that feature male friendships, and that makes The Great Unexpected a rare treat in the genre.The Great Unexpected is such a lovely story, poignant and heartwarming. The characters, particularly Joel and Frank, are so well-drawn, and Una as their secret accomplice is touching. There are a few laughs and plenty of tears to go around, and this book brings to the forefront the radical idea that older people want to have autonomy over their daily life, just as we all do, no matter where they live.I highly recommend The Great Unexpected, and I can truly say that I found it unexpectedly wonderful.
    • 3/5
      “The Great Unexpected” is a thoughtful examination of aging and elder care. It is a story told with humor and compassion about the challenges faced by those of us facing the last chapter of our lives, those who love us and those who care for us. I was impressed that each side was given a voice. I was able to understand the depression, isolation, frustration and fear that the main character Joel Monroe was experiencing. His daughter Eva was well portrayed and her reactions to her father’s behavior were equally understandable. The caregivers at Hilltop, the facility where Joel Monroe lives, covered the spectrum from hardline to quietly sympathetic, and I was reminded of the difficulty of the job. I felt the frustrations of being marginalized, about being subjected to superfluous rules. Then along comes Frank Adams a/k/a Frank de Selby who has a completely different take on aging, and loves nothing more than upsetting Joel’s routine. A friendship is born and through the pages there can be no doubt of the power that friendship brings to a lonely man who could be quite clever at times and “a thundering idiot at other times” .Reminiscent of Fredrik Bachman’s “A Man Called Ove” this is a story that can be meaningful told in many ways and recently I have come across several other books that relate to these issues and their importance.Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin for a copy.